Marbles are named from the Latin word "_marmor_," by which similar
playthings were known to the boys of Rome, 2,000 years ago. Some marbles
are made of potter's clay and baked in an oven just as earthenware is
baked, but most of them are made of a hard kind of a stone found in
Saxony, Germany. Marbles are manufactured there in great numbers and
sent to all parts of the world, even to China, for the use of the
Chinese children.
The stone is broken up with a hammer into pieces, which are then ground
round in a mill. The mill has a fixed slab of stone, with its surface
full of little grooves or furrows. Above this a flat block of oak wood
of the same size as the stone is made to turn round rapidly, and, while
turning, little streams of water run in the grooves and keep the mill
from getting too hot. About 100 pieces of the square pieces of stone
are put in the grooves at once, and in a few minutes are made round and
polished by the wooden block.
China and white marbles are also used to make the round rollers which
have delighted the hearts of the boys of all nations for hundred of
years. Marbles thus made are known to the boys as "chinas," or "alleys."
Real china ones are made of porcelain clay, and baked like chinaware or
other pottery. Some of them have a pearly glaze, and some are painted in
various colors, which will not rub off, because they are baked in, just
as the pictures are on the plates and other tableware.
Glass marbles are known as "agates." They are made of both clear and
colored glass. The former are made by taking up a little melted glass on
the end of an iron rod and making it round by dropping it into a round
mould, which shapes it, or by whirling it around the head until the
glass is made into a little ball.
Sometimes the figure of a dog or squirrel or a kitten or some other
object is put on the end of the rod, and when it is dipped into the
melted glass the glass runs all around it, and when the marble is done
the animal can be seen shut up in it. Colored glass marbles are made
by holding a bunch of glass rods in the fire until they melt; then the
workmen twist them round into a ball or press them into a mould, so that
when done the marble is marked with bands or ribbons of color. Real
agates, which are the nicest of all marbles, are made in Germany, out
of the stone called agate. The workmen chip the pieces of agate
nearly round with hammers and then grind them round and smooth on
grindstones.--_Philadelphia Times_.
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